Am having trouble getting much done with SFX. With what I do for a living, its really hard for me to call or receive calls during the work week. Frequently (50% of the time?), even when I can make time to call SFX, a machine comes on and says to call during business hours PST (which I am already doing). Machine takes a message and sometimes someone calls me back that day- but usually I am unavailable.
One day, I did manage to get through to a human and spoke with an associate who strongly urged me to get requests in for Hawaiian properties now. OK, but I need to check 1 or 2 things with DH and call back.
Call back 30 minutes later (mid day on a weekday). Get the familiar SFX machine telling me to call during business hours. Leave a message. No call back. Call again around 4pm. Machine friend comes on the line and I leave another message.
So I try to set up my request on line. Went through the whole process and then got an error message that I could not make a request past June 2011.
Called SFX and left them another message that there was a problem with the dates I was being allowed to request on-line.
Someone from SFX called me back 4 days later ("to assist me with logging in to my account"), but I was not home when they called.
Emailed SFX and got problem corrected and now I have ability to request through Jan 10, 2012. In the email I sent SFX, I gave them my desired location, properties and timeframe and they said they'd set the request up for me but could only do so through Jan 10, 2012- I'll have to come back and extend dates as my 18-month request window opens. Ok, that's fine.
Today I look on line and nothing set up. Ok, no big deal. I'll set it up. Go through whole process of entering dates for multiple locales and get an error message that I can only request travel that will be COMPLETED by Jan 10, 2012. I include in the comment line the specific resorts I am interested in.
Ok, so re-enter everything and then I get a message that if SFX gets an EXACT match of locale, resort quality, and time but I don't accept the exchange, I will still be charged the exchange fee. Which I totally understand, except for resort quality part. Some of the resorts that they suggested I request are in my opinion of lesser quality than the resort I am offering.
So in the end, I just deleted this exchange request. And after all that I've still accomplished nothing.
So the point of my post is two-fold:
1. Does anybody know how it is handled if I request specific resorts in the comments section of my on-line request and SFX matches us into another resort on the same island that we did not request. Am I forced to pay the full exchange fee if I do not accept the exchange?
2. To share this experience and see if anyone has suggestions as to how I might be better able to work with SFX, keeping in mind that calling during the work week will frequently not work for me. Truthfully, my current vibe is that my schedule is incompatible with SFX's and I probably won't realistically be able to work with this particular company.
H
